


Fear is the Heart of Love

by blackrabbit42



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26578687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackrabbit42/pseuds/blackrabbit42
Summary: Sam and Dean in a post-nuclear apocalypse world.  Inspired by the bookZ is for Zachariah.  Written for Springfling 2020
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 20
Kudos: 86





	Fear is the Heart of Love

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Страх — сердцевина любви](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29777913) by [WTF_J2_SPN_Final_Cut_2021 (WTF_J2_SPN_2019)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_J2_SPN_2019/pseuds/WTF_J2_SPN_Final_Cut_2021)



When they were little and John was gone on a hunt, Sam would sleep with his back pressed hot up against Dean’s and it felt like they were the only two people in the world. He’d often be scared, but never lonely. Now, they really are the last two people in the world, but he’s no longer scared.

Dean likes to take long walks in the woods, and Sam likes to spend that time reading. He doesn’t look out the windows and fret, he just waits. Because if something ever happens to Dean, then it’s all over. Nothing more to worry about. Sam’s troubles will be over in the time it takes to load his gun. It’s a very, very simple equation. 

It’s been several hours since he last saw Dean, heading downriver with a shotgun cocked over his shoulder. The evening light outside is starting to purple, and Sam starts the evening chores. Closes the chicken coop. Lights the lantern in the kitchen. Dean will come home smelling like pine needles, fresh-cheeked and temporarily free of that restlessness that haunts him since the road is no longer an option. 

There’s four other houses in the valley, their owners either gone and never returned, or buried far downriver where any radiation their corpses may leak will flow out of the valley. They’ve long since scavenged anything useful and brought it to their own little homestead, but Dean sometimes still visits them. From time to time, he’ll find something he overlooked, or something that hadn’t seemed useful years ago, but has since become so. 

He feels the same way about Dean. You would have thought they knew everything about each other by now, but he still finds things hidden in Dean, buried so deep that he never suspected. Or things that were there all along that Sam didn’t think were important. The years have revealed these things, like wind or water wearing down rock. Sam treasures these finds, fossils. The very bones of Dean. 

The porch door slams and the sound of Dean whistling drifts through the house. All those songs from memory, like some sort of heavy metal Granger. He refuses to throw away all his old cassette tapes, even though there’s no way to play them. Maybe someday, he says. 

Sam goes to the door and helps Dean unload his pack, take off his boots, put away his coat and gloves. It’s really just an excuse for them to touch. To feel the other person is there, for real, warm and alive beneath their fingers. 

“See anything?” Sam asks. He doesn’t mean anything like, “other people” or “the National Guard.” He let go of those questions a long time ago. Dean knows it. They only need to walk to the top of the ridge on either side of their valley to know that. 

“Actually, yeah. I saw this cool little hawk I’ve never seen before. Red and grey? Spots and stripes? But it was _little_. I saw it at—” Dean looks around. “What’s that noise?” 

Sam hears it too, and for a fraction of a second, he has no idea. A scratchy sound, but with a rise and fall that isn’t random. A rise and fall that means something. Voices. Human voices. 

They drop everything they’re holding, and scramble into the den. They gave up on the radio a year or two in, but Sam keeps it in good working order and checks it from time to time. He must have forgotten to turn it off. 

Dean reaches his hand out to the mic, but Sam stops him with a hand on his wrist. “Wait.” 

“Wait for wh…” but then Dean gets it too. Just listen. Just wait. Sam’s heart is thrashing around inside his chest and it’s not for hope. It’s fear. It’s his body gearing up for fight or flight or whatever it takes to keep what he has. This valley. This life. Dean. 

Their farmhouse is not visible from any point on the ridge; you need to hike down quite a ways into the valley before you catch sight of the slate roof and stone chimney, but the valley itself is what will attract attention— as far as Sam and Dean can tell, it’s the only green, living space for as far as their eyes can see. It would stick out like a sore thumb among all the grey-dead dust all around them. And once someone finds the valley, it will just be a matter of time. 

They listen, and Sam does not let go of Dean’s wrist. 

_…repeat. My name is Charles Fischer. I’m at approximately thirty-five degrees north, eighty five degrees south. That’s north of route 40, west of 127. I am traveling with a party of five looking for survivors. We have food, water and a permanent shelter at the Oakridge National Laboratory. Please respond with location. Repeat. My name is Charles Fischer…_

Sam takes it at face value. He does not think it’s a trap. He does not envision any sort of post-apocalypse dystopian concentration camp. He pictures one thing. 

Dean. 

Saving people. 

Because that’s what this will become, right? It’s easy keeping just the two of them alive. They don’t always get along, but Sam no longer has to worry about Dean sacrificing himself to save anyone. There’s no more deals, there’s no more “for the greater good,” there’s just the two of them. 

Out there? He knows there will always be one more person to save, one more hard choice to make, one more bargain with the devil. He remembers the tension Dean carried with him back then, the sleepless nights. 

In here? Dean has a favorite chicken. He named her Dumpling. In here, Dean remembers to check on the lady slippers in the woods each spring, because he willingly listened to Sam lecture one night about the importance of biodiversity in their valley. In here, with just the two of them pressed back to back at night, Sam knows he’ll be able to wake up before Dean and watch him sleeping, rumpled, warm and untroubled. 

“It doesn’t sound like they need help,” Dean says at last. 

“No, no it doesn’t. It’s not a mayday.” Sam agrees. Because that, right there? Is exactly what he’s talking about. It sounds, actually exactly like the opposite, like this Charles Fischer person could help _them_. But that’s not where Dean’s brain went, and that’s how he’ll always be. Instant _family business_ mode, even after all these years. Sam wouldn’t have him any other way, but he’d be lying if he said that part of him wasn’t glad that the world that needed Dean to be that person has gone by. 

Sam turns it off. Dean asks what’s for supper. That night, Sam wraps his arms around Dean, tangled up in thoughts of, _mine, mine, mine_. 

++++++++

Dean spends the next day close to home. They’ve got wood to get in. There’s a few spots on the roof that need seeing to. Sam can come up with things that need to be done all day. For several days. As long as it takes until the constant need to touch him and reassure himself that Dean is _here_ , and he’s not going anywhere leaves him. 

They check the message again that night. The coordinates are different, sounds like Fischer and his party are headed west, but well to the north of them. Oak Ridge is about an hour and a half drive from their valley, and it makes Sam restless. Nervous. Twitchy. Needy. He gets down on his knees right there and sucks Dean off, fingers clutching into the back of his thighs.

“I’m not going anywhere, Sammy,” Dean says, fingers in the hair at the back of Sam’s neck. 

++++++++

This probably isn’t the only spot in the world sheltered from the radioactive wind and rain, but it’s the only one they will ever know. The men who had left the valley to see what remained of the outside world came back rotting on their staggering feet. This isn’t a monster they can kill or a demon they can trick. In the end, there is nothing to hunt, no one they can save. 

After the first few days, they stop tuning in. The message stays the same, only the coordinates are different as Charles makes his way west. They’ve made their decision, no point in obsessing over the message. Except Sam can’t help himself. When Dean leaves the house, he checks. He plots the route, tracing the line on the map. Hides what he’s doing from Dean. 

On the sixth day, the message changes. 

_… repeat. Mayday, mayday, mayday. My name is Charles Fischer. I’m in Lebanon, Tennessee. That’s north of route 40, west of 127. My vehicle has suffered catastrophic system failures, I am the lone survivor. I need transport to safety. Repeat. Mayday, mayday, mayday. My name is Charles Fischer…_

Sam glances out the window. Dean is out walking the fence. Sam predicts that the deer population in the valley will die out within a few years, but until then, they need to be kept out of the garden. Dean’s gait is easy as he walks along, stooping here and there to examine something on the ground, or follow the arc of a bird through the field. 

It’s about eighty miles to Lebanon. No way to get there. None. The gas in the Impala degraded beyond use in less than a year. But Sam doesn’t think that would stop Dean from trying to find a way. 

There’s no doubt in his mind that Dean puts Sam first. No doubt whatsoever. But Dean believes in them. Believes they can do anything. Believes they can save the world, if given just half a chance. And why wouldn’t he? They’ve done it again and again. Dean will want to have his cake and eat it too. Keep Sam safe _and_ save the world. 

Sam walks out to the front porch. From out here, he can hear them both. The message on repeat in the house, and Dean whistling. It occurs to Sam that part of the reason Dean whistles is to let Sam know he’s there. 

_… repeat. Mayday, mayday, mayday. My name is Charles Fischer. I’m in Lebanon, Tennessee..._

Sam closes his eyes and thinks of Dean. Thinks of how he still keeps his hair cut short, even now when there’s no one but Sam to see. Thinks of how he toes off his boots at night and lays out in front of their wood stove like a cat. Thinks of the way he brings orphaned rabbits into the house for Sam to raise and release. 

By late afternoon, Charles Fischer has dropped the formal mayday protocol. 

_… please. Just please. Anyone out there, I am in desperate need of assistance. I have children back in Oak Ridge. Please respond. Anyone. Please…_

When the sun begins to dip below the horizon, and Dean turns to head towards the house, Sam snaps off the radio. Reaching behind it, he pulls a wire loose. He quietly closes the door of the den behind him and doesn’t look back. 

Dean greets him on the porch. “Any news?” he asks. 

“No, Dean, no news.” 

Dean’s not stupid. He’s heard Sam lie too many times not to know one when he hears one. He looks at Sam for two heartbeats, then four. 

“Okay then, Sam, okay.”


End file.
